The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Hobbit concludes here with a finale that just like the rest of the trilogy is good but also very, very flawed.

Smaugs death and the lead up to it was great. It was an intense scene with great moments from Bard. This should have been the ending of The Desolation of Smaug though.

Thorin is pretty good in the film too. The character meets a satisfying conclusion and Richard Armitage was brilliant in the role. Him being cured from dragon sickness was very sudden though. He literally changed after one scene but for the most part, this character was great.

The lead up to the battle was very well written with all the characters motivations being clear and making sense. The battle was alright with some great moments. The ram sequence was really fun and surprisingly brutal, like I forgot how bloody it got. The final battle between Thorin and Azog the Defiler was a great moment.

Alfred was irritating in every scene he was in. I am glad he got a death scene in the extended edition. I needed to see it.

My main issue with the battle was how much filler there was in it. Too much of these scenes do not add or progress anything to the plot at all. They look cool but are still just filler and do nothing in getting the audience invested in the battle. Additionally, the geography of the battlefield was not well established. Characters just popped up when they needed to be. This is what Helms Deep got right and why it is one of the best battle sequences in film.

The most stupid moment in the whole franchise was Kili’s death. He had the advantage of a surprise attack and a sword in order to save Tauriel but when he attacked, he didn’t even use his fucking sword. Then, strangely enough, he died. With Thorins death, I felt sad. Here, the only thing I felt was my palm slapping my face.

This love triangle did not get better here at all. They didn’t even try to develop it to make it more interesting. All they did was kill off Kili and have Tauriel cry while saying soppy shit. I do not fucking care.

Why The Hobbit had so many flaws was because of studio meddling. The love triangle was a studio decision. The Hobbit being a trilogy instead of what was originally planned of it being two films was also a studio decision. Both of them were made during filming too while also there being little to no pre-production. So, considering the cards Peter Jackson was dealt with, I think he did a pretty good job. These films still ended up being entertaining despite its flaws and it still felt like I was in Middle Earth. The trilogy could have been so much worse basically.

I still wished we got Guillermo Del Toro to direct it though. He seems like the perfect director for The Hobbit.

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TheSpirit11
TheSpirit11(@thespirit11)
1 year ago

I don’t understand how the first of the Hobbit movies was so good and then they fumbled the bag so hard with the second and third. An Unexpected Journey is LOTR-trilogy tier and then The Desolation of Smaug and this are…. beyond mediocre.

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